Buyouts

According to Ford spokesman Mark Truby, "Despite a strengthening in our business, we still have a surplus in employees." Union employees to be specific. As such, Ford has just announced plans to reduce its unionized workforce by offering a buyout package to all 41,000 UAW members currently employed by the automaker.

Yesterday, General Motors announced plans for another round of buyouts. Initial reports said the automaker would offer workers 50 years of age and older $20,000 cash and another $25,000 voucher towards the purchase of a GM vehicle. However, the Associated Press is now reporting that GM will offer every one of its hourly workers the opportunity to expand their career options. A UAW official confirms to the AP that the offer will be a one-time cash payout as well as a car-purchase voucher, but wou

General Motors reported its second quarter earnings this morning, and the news was predictably grim. The General lost $15.5B in the quarter, as the Detroit Automaker continues to struggle with brutal market conditions and the costs associated with strikes and downsizing. Among the losses is a $4B hit from automotive operations, as stymied truck sales resulted in an 18% drop in revenue to $38B. GM's credit arm lost another $2.5B from high loan default rates and huge losses from truck and SUV leas

Ford is hoping to continue the reduction of both the number of vehicles the automaker will produce and, correspondingly, its hourly blue-collar workforce. In order to make good with the UAW, the same buyout packages available last year are being extended to these unionized workers. The packages have not changed since they were offered to Ford employees in Kentucky in June of 2007. These latest buyout announcements involve workers from plants in either Michigan or Ohio, a further blow to the alre

More than one-fourth of GM's 74,000 hourly employees are going to grab the loot and skedaddle. Earlier this year, UAW President Ron Gettlefinger estimated that 15,000 would put their hands out, but another couple thousand decided to hop on the General's money train. The workers are expected to finish their employment by July 1. GM's most recent deal with the UAW means it can replace those folks with lower wage workers and save itself a bundle on payroll. And that will make the job of saving itse

General Motors announced today that approximately 19,000 hourly employees have opted to leave the automaker's ranks in exchange for a buyout offer and retirement incentives. The offer was extended to 74,000 UAW workers in an attempt to swap out highly paid long-termers with lower-paid new employees as the General realigns its financial situation. Workers have had months to make the decision, but GM is giving them another week to rethink their choice. Employees that have made the final decision w

Ford is making significant strides to turn its North American operations around. In 2006, it was able to cut almost 34,000 workers from its payroll after one round of buyouts and is looking to cut even more of its workforce this year through another payoff program that's being offered to 54,000 UAW-represented workers.

Over 2006 and 2007, Ford lost $15.3 billion. Over that same time and in light of those losses, the company also shed 33,600 union workers through buyouts and early retirement. Still working through the uphill part of the turnaround, Ford has announced it wants to eliminate another 8,000 to 9,000 factory jobs through buyouts.

Car sales in the US are down, which is bad news for everybody in the industry, but Chrysler is among the automakers struggling most. To adjust factory production to lower demand, the Pentastar was preparing to lay off up to 5,000 workers when it cut shifts at several plants. Instead, to keep good will with the UAW while also slimming down the blue-collar payroll, the Auburn Hills, MI-based automaker is offering buyouts to union members from Jefferson North, Belvidere Assembly Plant in Illinois,

When Ford and General Motors offered buyouts to their employees over the last two years, they each got more takers than they were looking for. Those companies chose to let most of the applicants have the buyouts and then hired temporary workers to fill the gap. This year, it was Chrysler's turn to shed another 13,000 employees and they're taking a different tack.

Here come the pink slips for the white-collar guys and gals at Ford. And to speed up the exodus, 6 preprogrammed tags have been added to those termination notices. Actually, Ford Motor Co. is starting to offer buyouts to many of its salaried employees to help trim its U.S. payroll. As many as 85 percent of each department's workers will get the option of the buyout. Ford is looking to rid itself of 10,000 of its 38,500 salaried workers by 2008.

As Ford works to restructure itself with the goal of becoming more competitive in the marketplace, the automaker has announced that 38,000 UAW-represented hourly workers have accepted buyout packages so far. Roughly 30,000 of those came through the recent open enrollment period, when a variety of packages were offered to employees based on their employment circumstances. Retirement-eligible employees were offered traditional packages, for example, while employes with shorter tenure were presente

Forbes automotive columnist Jerry Flint provides a history lesson of various automotive couplings and even triads to illustrate that while a few have been beneficial to one or (rarely) all parties, most fall flat on their faces. None, however, are easy for any of the parties, successful or not.

It's not often that a company gets excited about 35,000 workers jumping ship via early retirement packages and buyouts, but when that company is General Motors, the bailage is a very good thing. The news means that General Motors is two years ahead of schedule in terms of shrinking its workforce, way ahead of analysts' expectations. What's more is 12,600 workers from Delphi are taking advantage of an attrition plan offered up by the United Auto Workers and General Motors.

Delphi's former parent company General Motors will be footing the bill for these buyouts, which will be in the neighborhood of several hundred million dollars. Additionally, up to 3,200 IUEW workers will be able to transfer to GM for retirement purposes.